Another painful emergency. Shortly after my wife left for work early, I discovered I was fully blocked again (SP Catheter), second time since Sunday morning. Instead of bothering her, I thought, I will irragate it myself, as I watched her do it before. Big mistake, unknown to me, this was a hard blockage. When I tried to inject the sterile water down the cath, it hit a major obstruction, and then it forced all this gunk/blood right out my penis. I tried a second attempt ,put me in the pain zone, and now, the cath was blocked, and the bladder neck was gunked up. Put a call to my wife to come home to help me, but couldnt reach her.
Threw some clothes on, drove to the uro's sattellite office, just about 3 blocks away. Even though only one dr. on duty, and a busy waiting room, they had me in a room within 10 mins. With all my episodes, I am known by face. The nurse called my Dr. at his main office for advice, he said, if you can't irragate it on the first pass, then replace the cath. (he was going to be doing that Monday anyway).
This uro is much younger, partner of my dr, never had dealings with him before. But thank goodness, the nurse knows me well, and helped the dr. There was no irragation attempt, too much gunk. So they swapped out #15 for #16. I was scared and in a lot of pain to start with. This time, the long painful part was removing the old one, it kept sticking from gunk, took the two of them 3 attempts to get it out. Since I didnt have anyone to drive me, they couldn't drug me or sedate me first.
With the nurse holding one hand, and my other arm on the doctor's shoulder, he got me into some deep shallow breathing while they inserted the new catheter. It was still a full "10" on the pain scale, but going in only took 1/3rd the time of getting the old one out.
After the new one was inflated, he flushed out my bladder 3x to get any more gunk that was accumulating, so that it wouldnt start to mess up the new cath. They were very kind, and helped me lift back vertical, something hard to do after having all that pain.
Now I wont have to worry about waiting till Monday to get a swap, its done, but will still meet with my uro to strategize about what is next. My wife has a fresh irragation kit just incase.
Back home, alone at the moment, still hurting, but slowly subsiding. It was another painful emergency situation, but once again my local uro's team came through for me. I am thankful for that part.
Perhaps the rest of Friday won't be so dramatic for me.
David in SC